New Year Resolution Of Sorts

 

In late 2011, I spun this blog off from Stern Rake Studio to provide a focus on the gaming, activities, updates and overall tabletop mayhem of my Redshift Campaign. 

My purpose of starting this endeavour was to bring out as much of my science fiction gaming material and miniatures into the light-of-day as possible.  Everything from roleplaying (RPG), in the form of the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG, (soon to be superseded by Edge of the Empire--Beginner Game)  to small unit actions (Stargrunt II or FUBAR), to large-scale planetary battles (Dirtide II or Future War Commander), and even fleet engagements (Full Thrust). 

Another goal of mine was to post a chapter per month of my initial webcomic, Breakout from Bongolaan, which will provide a detailed story of the initial Redshift adventure.

So, how did I do in 2012?

Well...

...despite reaching the 130 day point of the campaign, I haven't advance much past the RPG level at this time.  Running an on-going RPG campaign proved too much for my players and I to maintain.  As a result of this demise, I spent a lot time re-evaluating my skills, or lack thereof, as a gamemaster. 

My "cunning plan" to post a chapter-a-month of Breakout proved to be overly optimistic.  Normally, graphic novels are collaborative efforts between writers and artists.  Whereas I'm a one-man cantina band.  Compiling pictures and adding special effects (explosions & blaster bolts), along with conjuring up a coherent narrative and dialogue has taken far more time to do than I originally estimated.  And that's if I have the time to do all this.

Finally--life got in the way.  My girlfriend's son got married in August and her mom passed away, after suffering from a long-term illness in October.  So 2012 has been a year of joy & sorrow for both of us. 

Plus there were other game projects I wanted to complete before this old year passed.

Now that I'm done making excuses, what am I going to do in 2013?

For starters, I'll set a more modest goal of posting 1 chapter every two months for my webcomic.  Since there are three subsequent adventures, this will keep me busy for years to come.  In the meantime, readers can get an overview of past adventures by reading this blog's past News Briefs, Intel Briefs and other appropriate postings.

War is about to erupt in the galaxy far, far away.  My plan is to conduct the strategic encounter solitaire and then post an invitation to fight a miniatures battle to my gaming group.  If scheduling a game proves too difficult, then I'll resolve the tactical battle using one of my sci-fi boardgames in my collection.

Finally, I've come up with another "cunning plan" to resurrect the RPG aspect, of sorts. 

A few weeks back the RPGers of our group held a Council Meeting, in which we laid out a plan for what RPGs we wanted to play and who would gamemaster them.  Because my rotating work schedule continues to be a problem, I thought I could conduct an episodic bounty hunter campaign.  That is, run unconnected adventures in which player characters (PCs) will decide what posted bounties they'll pursue and bring in--dead or alive.

My proposed Bounty Hunter Campaign was well received by the group and the idea is conduct game sessions in between any scheduling gaps that may occur.

That's the plan anyway.

So here's to making more modest, but steady gains in 2013.

Best wishes to all of you throughout the New Year.  Thank you for your interest and readership.